A Terrible Choice
by Trevor the Enchanter
Summary: In the chaos following Amity's destruction, one person will decide the fate of millions. Companion piece to "It Happened Here"


Let me warn you in advance, you'll have to read "It Happened Here" It deals with a real, albeit controversial, subject. This deals with the end, where a choice will decide the face of the United States of America. Read (and review) the story before reading this so it'll make more sense.

Seriza was writing various notes on paper, more to keep himself busy than to serve any real purpose. He studied the Fentons' inventions and while they were impressive, they were also primitive. He intended to give a few suggestions for their improvement.

_Especially with what happened last night. _He thought. _Amity Park destroyed in a matter of hours by a ghost; it sounds impossible. _There was a whisper in his head that said he could destroy him immediately, if only he would… _No, I won't let that happen!_

He saw Jack, Maddie, and Vlad walk into the lab. "What can I do for you?" He asked. "If this is about helping out, I'm sorry, but I don't have the stomach for it. It brings back too many memories." _A bomb in the middle of the road, a deafening explosion…gunfire everywhere, screams of the wounded…. A desperate fight for survival._

"We're not here about that." Vlad declared. "We need your ectoplasmic destroyer."

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Seriza replied fearfully. _Maddie, how could you do this to me? I trusted you!_

"I broke my promise; I'm sorry, Davis." Maddie sighed. "I couldn't handle it anymore. You have to use the ecto-destroyer against him."

"No," He sped down into the lab, locking the door. He grabbed the destroyer, intending to destroy it. Seriza grabbed some of his notes, tearing them to shreds. _I can't let it happen; I can't!_

The trio broke into the room, and Maddie grabbed onto the device. They wrestled around, each trying to get it out of the other's grip. Davis stuck out a leg, tripping her, which released the device. Maddie fell to the ground with a cry of pain, which brought him back to reality.

"Maddie!" Jack exclaimed, running to her side. Vlad glared at him murderously.

"I'm sorry about that, Maddie, but the ectoplasmic destroyer cannot be used, not even for this." Davis apologized.

"If we can't defend ourselves from him, what will happen to us?" Jack pleaded.

"And what will happen to us if a weapon such as I now have falls into the wrong hands?" Davis returned. "Bombs against bombs, guns against guns, men against men, missiles against missiles, and now a new super weapon that can destroy us all. As a human being, I cannot allow that to happen. I will not be the one to unleash this weapon on the world!"

"What makes you think you have a choice, Seriza?" Vlad glared. "You can give it to us, or we can take it. What chance do you really have against us?"

"More than you think, Plasmius." All three of them were surprised at his outburst. _Took some time to figure it out, but I eventually managed it. The similar voices, personality, and the fact that Danny seems to hate him…I put two and two together. _He pulled a gun out of his pocket. Vlad summoned an ecto-ray in his hand, which somehow Jack and Maddie failed to notice.

"Please don't do this; please help us." Maddie asked, the pain beginning to recede.

Seriza pressed the gun against his own head. "If you force me, I will kill myself to keep the secret from being revealed! All I ever wanted to do was make a difference, to make the world a better place."

"You still can; there are others who care about you!" Jack exclaimed.

"Oh, please, Jack, everyone is gone." Davis snarled. "My parents are dead, Brenda's left, and the only people I thought still cared about me are asking me to betray my principals!" He ranted, partly at them, partly to himself, about his experiences. As time went on, his rant become less intelligible. _Part of me wants to use that damn thing on them! What it would do to those monsters…limbs flying everywhere, them begging for mercy but there would be none…no less than they deserved! How can anyone think of being merciful to them, after what I've seen them do?! _Even if I destroy my research, the secret is still inside my head. As long as I live, how can I be sure I won't be forced to make another device? I can't get rid of this knowledge, as much as I want to do so!"

"Then you have a terrible decision to make." Jack sighed, looking directly at him. "You have your fears, which could become reality, and you have our current enemy, which is reality."

"The choice is yours and yours alone." Maddie added. Vlad frowned at them, fully intending to force him to use the device, but he held back for the moment. Davis buried his face in his hands, pulling his hair in frustration and conflict.

"Well, I hope this persuades you." Vlad hissed furiously. "If not, you're just as heartless as you appear." He turned on the television, immediately getting everyone's attention.

"Attention! Attention, citizens of the United States!" An announcement stated on the news. "A worldwide prayer was earlier held for the victims of last night's devastation. Here is the Amity chapter of this event."

At first, the camera was swung around Amity. Almost every building was destroyed and badly damaged. Wrecked Tanks and APCs were among them. Some buildings had the top floors blown off, while others collapsed into the street. Power lines had fallen everywhere, with bodies near many who had been unfortunate enough to be near them. Survivors were around, looking at the destruction with shock and utter helplessness.

The scene switched to some of the few remaining soldiers in the city pulling bodies out of wreckage. They looked sick and weak, barely able to stomach the grisly work. A badly injured survivor was found. They laid him down, giving what assistance they could, while others put bodies into the back of the truck, along with burned and severed limbs.

Another was shown of a burning building ready to collapse. Several people were trapped in there, and no way to get any of them out. Firefighters could not get there due to the roads being blocked by rubble and most of the water mains destroyed. A few brave civilians tried to get in there and help, but the fire was too intense for anyone to get through. The screams gradually subsided and the building collapsed from within by the time firefighters arrived, who were beyond exhausted by this time.

The next showed one of the many makeshift hospitals in Amity. Badly injured and dead men, women, and children were lined up, while loved ones harassed doctors and untrained volunteers to see them. A doctor looked at a badly burned child and shook his head sadly, while the parents broke down in tears.

Nurses were helping more people in, made more difficult when young children clung to them in tears, trying to understand what was happening. Some of them had missing limbs, obviously in shock and would die if help was not given immediately.

The camera went to several patients in various states of injury trying to help one another because there were not sufficient resources to give to them. Children no older than 10 were getting bandages and wrapping them around bleeding wounds and broken bones. One was giving an elderly man water, which he gulped down the best he could. Many could not even stand, but they extended their arms to the children and to each other trying to give what comfort they could.

Then many candlelight vigils were shown with people praying and crying. There was a massive one in Times Square with thousands of giant candles lit, symbolizing the victims. People were kneeling, bowing their heads in respect and prayer. More were shown in London and Paris.

"Please, Davis, you've got to help us!" Jack pleaded. "If anyone can stop this from happening again, it's you! I'm begging you! My son's one of the victims and I don't know if he's going to survive. Jazz is out there trying to help people, and what she's seeing is someone no one should she, much less a teenage girl."

"All right, all right, I'll do it!" Seriza exclaimed, obviously disturbed by what he saw. "Sigh, I was hoping to do more research on this, but it appears I don't have time. However, let me make this clear: this is the only time I will let this weapon be used." He walked to one of the tables in the lab and grabbed the Ecto-destroyer. It looked sort of like an explosive device, except it had tubes everywhere. He grabbed the notes and methodically shredded them. Nodding when he was done, he walked out the lab with the rest of them.

"What's that girl doing here?" Seriza asked.

"Well, on our way over, we saw her running from someone and we couldn't just leave her." Jack explained. Seriza nodded in acceptance.

"Maddie…I'm sorry about earlier." Seriza sighed. "I thought you wanted me to present it to the world as a weapon and that you abused my trust for no reason."

"Look, it doesn't matter now; we have to take this thing out!" Maddie replied. She kept a close eye on Paulina as the others walked to Casper High to see how Danny was doing. He was asleep with Sam and Tucker watching over him.

"How is he doing?" Vlad asked.

"Why the hell do you care?" Sam snapped. "If you cared, you would have been out there helping him instead of simply standing on the sidelines!"

"Samantha, what could I have done to save him?" Vlad shook his head. "Even together, he was able to defeat us easily. I hoped Daniel would stay out of it, but I knew him too well. In addition, I had to keep the city from completely falling apart. Once I saw the shield go down, I knew what was going to happen."

"This isn't the time to fight among ourselves right now." Seriza added quietly, still clutching the device. "We have a job to do; I just hope it works."

"What's that thing you have in your hands?" Tucker asked. "Can I see it?"

"No!" Seriza screamed, pulling away. Under different circumstances, he would have gotten attention, but there was so much shouting that it went unnoticed.

"That thing is the ectoplasmic destroyer, which is able to destroy any ghost, no matter how powerful!" Jack exclaimed, not noticing Seriza's attempts to shut him up. "He's the inventor of it and he's going out there to teach that ghost what happens when you attack innocent people!"

"Good, but will it work?" Sam asked. "We already saw everything else torn to pieces. People thought they would be safe and they weren't. How will this make any difference?"

"Look, children, I have full confidence in him." Vlad declared. "He is a genius, more so than any of us."

"This is all your fault!" Tucker screamed. "It's your fault everyone's suffering, your fault the city was destroyed! Why didn't you do anything?" He swung a punch at Vlad, blocking it easily. Danny moaned, moving slightly from side to side.

"Hey, guys…any news?" Danny asked tiredly.

"No, I'm afraid not." Vlad sighed. "I'm still trying to keep everything together, but no one's able to get anything through, the stupid worthless idiots. We still don't know how many causalities, but definitely in the tens of thousands. If not for you, Daniel, it would be even higher."

"I know, but…I still feel useless." Danny sighed.

"I'm prouder than I know how to tell you, son." Jack smiled sadly. "I just wish this hadn't happened to you."

"It's the one time I wish Desiree was here." Danny shook his head. "No, not even she would be able to reverse something like this.

"Don't worry; we'll be here for you." Tucker reassured, his face wretched with pain. "We're not leaving your side." He would have hugged him, except Danny had a broken leg and ribs, although the latter were healing rapidly due to his slowly returning ghost powers. Vlad walked off without saying a word, a deep shadow over his eyes.

"I went into the ghost hunting profession despite the ridicule I received because I wanted to protect people." Jack stated. "I never imagined all my efforts would be completely useless! What good did any of my weapons do? What good did anything do?"

"Jack, we'll get him." Seriza promised. Whatever doubts he had about using the ecto-destroyer were completely gone, replaced with a grim determination.

"Glad to see you're still here, Danny." Jazz said, walking next to them and falling on her knees. She had dark circles under her eyes and her clothes were covered in blood. Dried tears covered her eyes and face, with an exhaustion none of them had ever seen in her. "I can't do this anymore; I've reached my limit. I'll be describing all of this to a shrink for the next decade at this rate."

"Wish I knew what to say; we're all in shock at the moment." Jack stated the obvious. "And all of us are in pain, physical or otherwise."

"So this…partner of yours is going to save us?" Danny smiled weakly. "I'd try to come with you so you'd be…somewhat safe, but just look at me."

"You've done more than enough." Seriza promised. "Your responsibility and pain is what no one should have to endure, much less a child. You are strong, you are extraordinary, but you are human. Let us handle it from here."

"Daniel, Valerie's dead." Vlad came back, bowing his head. "She was badly injured from last night's attack; she passed on about fifteen minutes ago."

"Did you have to tell him this now?" Sam shouted furiously.

"I can't exactly shelter him from this!" Vlad snapped back; the disaster had left his temper on edge. "Would you rather have him find out when he goes back to school and wondering why his friend isn't there anymore? Perhaps you would get his hopes up and shatter them, but I won't! This is the real world, not a fairy tale!"

"V-man, what happened?" Jack asked. "Did you get any more bad news?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so." Vlad replied. "For one, our idiot President won't authorize what I asked him to do, which is to airlift supplies into Amity. It won't solve all our problems, but it would do something! Neither will his sycophantic bureaucrats! Second, our situation overseas has just gotten worse and with our current situation, there's a lot of violence. They think it's a sign of imminent victory! People around the world are celebrating what happened to us!"

"Vlad, calm down; let's just focus on this." Jazz cut in.

"How can anyone be happy about this?" Danny groaned. "I don't understand it."

"Then you do not understand human evil." Seriza informed. "Neither did I until I stared it in the eyes." He gulped and tried to keep his composure. He turned around and saw Maddie hobbling towards them.

"That thing is now attacking Indianapolis." Maddie came close to breaking down. "It's never going to stop; it's never going to end. That demon is going to destroy the country I love one city at a time! They don't have anything to resist with over there, not that it helped us very much."

"As if things weren't bad enough…" Sam put in.

"Look, I'll use this thing on him." Seriza tried to reassure. "Do you have a way to get into the ghost zone?" Maddie gave her assent.

Over the next few days, Jack and Maddie stayed with Danny while Vlad and Seriza made plans for the attack. Danny started to recover and his ghost powers started to come back. Sam spent her time with her parents and Danny, while Tucker spent most of his time with his mother, who had developed a serious infection because of having her leg amputated. Since they were long since out of drugs, there was a good possibility she would die just as his father had.

Jazz tried to bring herself to help again, but once she found herself in a fetal position crying her eyes out, she finally accepted that she had reached her limit. Danny found someone to talk to, who was Dash of all people. His two younger siblings had burned to death early in the attack, so he was hardly his usual self. Danny briefly considered berating him because of their hostile past, but didn't have the energy to do anything but lie there.

The time they didn't spend with their children, Jack and Maddie gathered up what was left of the military and the Guys In White. Vlad made phone calls, most of the time shouting at various bureaucrats while Davis maintained the ecto-destroyer. It was slower then they would have liked, but they finally got the vehicles and personnel necessary for an assault in the ghost world.

"Don't worry, son; we've got a plan to bring him down." Jack promised. "I'm not going to let you kids down, I promise. In case me and your mom don't come back, please remember: we did this for you, so you can live in a better and safer world." He hugged Jazz tightly and grabbed Danny's hand. All of them were openly crying, not sure if they were ever going to see each other again.

X X X X X X X X X X

"It looks impressive, but won't do us any good if that ghosts finds us before we find him." Seriza sighed. There were dozens of vehicles with hundreds of people armed with ghost weapons, but he was right. If the ghost could level a city in a matter of hours, a few hundred would be easy.

"About 70000 dead so far altogether in both cities, and that number will probably go up." Vlad reminded him. "All of us know the risks involved here. Jack, Maddie, why don't you stay behind? Jasmine and Daniel need you right now." _I don't want you to die, Maddie, and oddly enough, don't particularly wish it on Jack right now, either. Sigh, Daniel's going to fall apart if he loses you two on top of everything that's happened. _

"Look, we have to do this for them." Maddie retorted. "If we fail, the United States ends with the current generation." They got onto the largest transport and opened a portal into the ghost world. Many of them looked around with awe, but Seriza stayed silent, thinking to himself.

"Hey, are you ok, buddy?" Jack asked. "Kind of a stupid question, I know, but you're my friend. Look, you know this has to be done, so what is it?"

"It doesn't matter, Jack; I was just spacing out." Seriza responded. _I can't tell him what it really is; he'd try to stop me. _"This is like a horrible nightmare that I can't wake up from."

Thankfully, they didn't encounter any other ghosts as they sped through the ghost world. However, reporters were along for the ride and were relentlessly questioning Seriza about his past, his invention, anything they could think of. He stayed silent, not wanting to think more than he had to.

"Mr. Seriza, Masters, Fenton, we found him." informed a GIW agent. "This is as close as we can get without running the risk of detection. Get your suits down; it's time." Seriza got on his suit, but protested when Jack did the same.

"I'm going out there!" Jack exclaimed. "There's one person here who's stupid enough to risk his life, and that's me! You don't have any experience in this kind of thing!"

"I'm the only one who knows how to use this device." Seriza protested. "There's no time to give you a crash course!"

"Just give me the basics, and I'll figure it out from there!"

"It's not that simple; it's an immensely complicated weapon that requires precise…"

"Jack, just go with him." Vlad interrupted. "For God's sake, though, don't do anything stupid and get yourself killed; you either, Seriza. You have experience with these suits and he knows how to use the ecto-destroyer." Both looked at each other and nodded. They slowly walked into the back of the ship, which was opened to allow them to go out.

"After I activate this, we have about 3 minutes to get away." Seriza explained. _Least you will; I have…different plans. _They approached slowly, not wanting to get his attention. Every moment seemed to be eternity. They saw the ghost up close and he seemed almost peaceful, serene.

Seriza told Jack to go ahead as he typed in the code for the ectoplasmic destroyer. It started buzzing, but he made no move to get away. Thankfully, the ghost had not yet noticed anything out of the ordinary. _It's better this way; no one can get the secret from me now. _

Before he knew it, however, he found himself being pulled back by Jack, who were heading towards the armada. He apparently thought there was a malfunction with the suit and Seriza could not tell him of his intentions. The energy was growing in magnitude and the ghost noticed. He turned around, looked at the armada and Seriza gasped in horror as his hands glowed with powerful energy. _It's over; all this trouble for nothing. What can we do if this weapon doesn't work?_

Before it was able to do anything, the weapon went off, creating a giant dome of energy. For a few seconds, it looked like it was going to consume them, but it stopped considerably short. Jack and Seriza went inside as the energy continued, all of them praying this would work.

"Come on, come on, come on…" Vlad whispered to himself. When it finally cleared, the ghost was still floating there, but at last something seemed to have hurt it. It gave one agonizing shriek and vaporized. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the menace has been destroyed." The reporter declared. How security could not have found him was beyond Seriza. "Let us give thanks and hope for the strength to rebuild our nation."

"It actually worked; we finally put an end to this." Maddie smiled. "Hopefully, this tragedy will not be so easily forgotten. Davis, all of us owe you a debt we can't even begin to repay. How knows how many millions that monster would have killed if you hadn't stopped?"

"Yeah, Danny's going to recover, Amity Park can be rebuilt, and we finally have our old friend and partner back!" Jack smiled, thumping him on the shoulder. Seriza pulled away from him, trying to find a place where he could be alone. He went inside the engine room and pulled out a gun.

Once he was sure he was alone, he pulled out a gun and shed a tear. _I'm sorry I can't do what you want, but I have to do this; there's no other way to be sure. _If this wasn't done, he knew he would simply be forced to make the weapon. Seriza took out a note that explained his actions and sent it down next to him. Nervous but determined, he closed his eyes and fired, everything going dark. The last thing he saw were the horrified faces of Jack and Maddie.

Yeah, I just watched to add a few things to the original story. I'm well aware of the aversion to OCs many fans have, but I didn't think Jack, Maddie, or Vlad would be conflicted about using it. Again, read and review "It Happened Here" and of course this lovely, tragic, angst-ridden one shot.


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